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Taiwan's Call to Arms

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Richard D. Fisher Jr. from The Wall Street Journal Asia

Updated March 19, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense issued its Quadrennial Defense Review Monday, which attempts to explain strategy, justify to legislators required future military force levels and gather support for all-important defense budgets. In doing so, Taiwan's generals are attempting to square the circle of Taiwan's tortured defense debate against the backdrop of China's growing military threat.

David Klein

The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government in Taipei has sent mixed signals about its defense intentions. When the KMT was in opposition earlier this decade, it opposed the defense programs of the Democratic Progressive Party government of former President Chen Shui-bian. But following the 2008 election that swept them back to power, the KMT came to support most of these same defense programs: patriot missile interceptors, conventional submarines and advanced F-16 jet fighters. For a while last year it appeared that a powerful faction in the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou might still oppose some of these programs, in favor of a "porcupine" strategy focused on strengthening the Army and building civil defenses to make Taiwan impossible for China's People's Liberation Army to swallow in a land invasion.

Mr. Ma has improved political relations with China. But the military threat is essentially unchanged. China's steady campaign of enticements, threats and deft use of its growing political power has proved effective. Beijing has formed its own coalition out of Taiwanese who are convinced that they cannot survive without greater economic access to China's markets and a relaxed political relationship. To this, Beijing has added a growing number of Americans who believe that China's cooperation is essential to U.S. interests from North Korea to the Persian Gulf. In each case, Beijing has persuaded its new friends that reaching their goals requires diminishing support for Taiwan's defense.

China's strategy has had a tangible effect on U.S.-Taiwan relations. Former National Security Council East Asia Director Dennis Wilder, who served under George W. Bush, recently described the former President's policy on Taiwan arms sales as seeking to achieve "a golden mean -- a robust package of arms sales that met Taiwan's immediate defense needs but was not perceived in Beijing as undermining the progress in cross-strait relations." From 2001 to 2008 this meant the sale of four air defense destroyers, 12 P-3 antisubmarine aircraft, upgrades for Patriot missiles and new AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. It also meant a firm "no" to 66 new F-16 Block50 fighters -- which are crucial to shifting the air power balance -- and delays that could scupper the sale of eight conventional submarines that were promised in 2001. Washington did not even want Taiwan to develop its defenses by itself: The Bush administration reportedly tried to undermine Taiwan's fielding of a small force of indigenously developed land attack cruise missiles, intended solely to deter Chinese attack.

Meanwhile Chinese threats to Taiwan continue to grow. Since 2007 the number of ballistic and cruise missiles deployed against Taiwan has grown from about 1,000, according to a U.S. count, to about 1,500 in early 2009, according to an official at Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council. Massive missile strikes against Taiwan's air and naval bases would be intended to make the Taiwan Strait safe for the People's Liberation Army's air and naval forces.

Just this week several Web forums that track Chinese military issues have shown the first images of a new version of the Chengdu J-10 fighter that features new aerial combat optical systems and possibly an advanced radar, which would place this fighter ahead of the comparable F-16A, Taiwan's most important fighter. Furthermore, the J-10 carries a missile that has a longer range than even the best missiles the U.S. has sold to Taiwan, and indeed the U.S. may not have a decisively superior missile itself. Should it secure air superiority the PLA may be tempted to invade Taiwan. As such, the continual upgrading of PLA amphibious army and marine units near Taiwan, and the construction of new large amphibious assault ships give the lie to China's oft-proclaimed peaceful intentions.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense, however, seems clear-eyed. It sees the growing military threats from China and the need for Taiwan to be able to handle them. Their defense review proposes a 60,000 cut in personnel, traded for improved firepower and a more politically attractive all-volunteer force. Both of these are expensive, and one will require continued willingness from Washington to meet Taiwan's needs. It puts to rest the army-centric "porcupine" debate by endorsing the need for more F-16s, a follow-on vertical take-off fifth generation fighter, and new submarines. And in a March 16 statement, one Taiwan General indicated continued support for their land attack cruise missile program.

Beijing, however, seeks to paralyze Washington by holding substantive military-to-military dialogue hostage to the unrelated issue of Taiwan arms sales. On March 10, America's new Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said "preparations for a Taiwan conflict" continue to drive PLA modernization, but the administration of Barack Obama has not yet formulated its arms sales policy. Will Washington remain true to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which states the U.S. will "provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character" and "maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force" against Taiwan"? Or will it continue the conflict-inviting Bush "golden mean" policy?

With reports that the Obama administration is preparing for major defense cuts, such as ending production of the F-22A, the only U.S. fighter clearly superior to any from China and Russia, and perhaps reducing U.S. aircraft carriers from 10 to nine, one might guess the new administration will have even less stomach for standing up to China. If so, then Taiwan may be facing a reprise of the Clinton years, when it was forced to rely on its own technologies and on brave allies in the U.S. Congress who understood the need to defend Taiwan, even in the face of Administration policy and defense cuts that undermined U.S. security commitments. With the new Taiwan defense review, now they have some strong ammunition from Taiwan's own generals and military analysts.

Mr. Fisher is a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center and author of "China's Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach" (Praeger, 2008).

Taiwan's Call to Arms

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense issued its Quadrennial Defense Review Monday, which attempts to explain strategy, justify to legislators required future military force levels and gather support for all-important defense budgets.